Greetings gentlemen (and ladies?), Very first post here, I hope that it has not been answered ad nauseum (and I and I am just too inept to utilize the search function to figure it out myself :tong ) In any case. It is an 80's vintage hydrostatic drive machine (spins like tank in one little spot, really great for land clearing, but I keep reaching for the steering/clutch handles like a big dummy). I used the machine several times over the winter to clear dead trees a make piles to burn, when/if we get sufficient rain, and the county allows us private citizen types to burn once again. As I was walking past the machine last weekend, I noticed that several of the pins in the track chain were oozing a light oil. Now, understand that this is lust a light track of oil being pulled down via gravity. 1st - I thought that the pins were filled with grease when assembled and were sealed. 2nd - there is a teeny-tiny hole on one side of the pin. Is there oil in the pins? Should I be putting oil or grease in them? I have been on everything from a pony motor era D9 to a Komatsu 21 and have never done anything other than adjust the tension and maybe replace a broken pad.....Well I did remove a set of tracks once but that is more of a 'hold my beer and watch this type of story) The machine came with a technical manual, but I don't read latin or greek very well and it is like 1400+ pages. Does anyone have a direction to point me in? And - while I love this machine, I kind of bought by accident. I was looking for an older 450 that I could tote around behind my 3/4 ton truck on a triple 7k axle trailer (farm tags - Texas - mostly legal and safe - did it for years, never should have let that rig go away). The 750 is just too big for me to move without a contract hauler. I will keep it until the job at the home-place is done and then move to the ranch (or trade for the model that I really wanted once the heavy lifting here is done). Thanks for the advice in advance gents.
If it has a small hole in the end of each pin with a rubber plug in it, then it's a sealed and lubricated track (SALT) and yes, they do have a heavy oil in there. Excavators will generally be a grease track, and the old sealed tracks were assembled dry. Leaky pins means it will soon start to wear internally, assuming what you're seeing is for sure not some oil that leaked onto the track from somewhere above it and is just seeping out? Your choices once the leaky pins start to squeak and/or stretch out are to just ignore it, replace the complete chain, or if it's just a few pins they can be replaced in the field and at that point are usually packed with grease in the hopes of reaching the end of useful chain life.
There is a small cone shaped hole on one side only, but no rubber plug. I will look around for something else that might have leaked while sitting still because it is kind if close to the front left blade lift cylinder. I usually bleed the pressure from all of the hydraulic lines when I shut it down, so nothing should have leaked out, but I guess that a small pin-hole style leak from a hose above could be the culprit.... It never happened before. It got run pretty hard, cleared about 4 acres of medium sized oak trees and pushed into a big pile over two days. Thanks for the advice.